Progress!

I have been working my rear off (seriously, I have lost a few pounds) for the past couple weeks to try to make this kitchen garden project actually materialize into something three-dimensional rather than drawings or ideas in my head. There have been more than a few moments when I stared at the wood and then stared at the space and then stared at my "plans" and thought that perhaps I should have left this to a professional. But in the end taking the risk and getting a second opinion from my engineer father-in-law got it done.

Here's how the slope looked in 2009 when it was a flourishing rock garden.

Pretty. However, it did not stay that way. As the summer wore on and then into the next summer there were far fewer flowers and far more weeds to battle. Plus I have been wishing for more room with full sun to grow edibles and then I noticed a weed tomato in this garden last summer. It grew well and gave me lots of cherry tomatoes. So that's when I started to scheme about an overhaul.

Then came the hard work. I dug out every plant, every weed, every tiny bulb, and many, many large rocks. I dug and dug and dug down in the clay subsoil to set posts and I dug long trenches for the boards. Something I have learned during this process: 10-foot-long 12x1-inch white oak boards that are still green (aka, not dried) are HEAVY.

You of course need to use non-treated lumber when making raised beds in which you or future residents of your house may be growing edible plants. Treated lumber leeches chemicals into the soil which then get taken up by the plants' roots and then by you when you eat the leaves or fruits of the plant. Because the wood is not to be treated, it must be very hard wood and resistant to rotting. There are three species that are recommended: cedar, redwood, or white oak. Cedar can be expensive and redwood must be transported from a distance to get to the Midwest and therefore would contribute to pollution. So my best bet was white oak, which grows in Michigan.

I was lucky enough to find a guy who salvages fallen trees in the area and then cuts them into usable boards. He happened to have a ten-foot white oak trunk and cut it to my specifications. I could be confident that it was wood that would have rotted and gone unused if not for Kelvin Potter of Raven Farm. I knew it did not come from clear-cutting a forest and I knew it had not been shipped across the country on a truck that used up fossil fuels and coughed smoke into the air. I knew it had not been treated. It was cut into true 12 inch by 1 inch (rather an 3/4 of an inch) boards and delivered to my house for a minimal fee. It was cheaper than lumber at a chain store, of better quality, of certain origin, and it supported someone local to my community.

After cobbling together my terraced raised beds I added cow manure and peat humus to help loosen the soil some more.  I leveled my path at the top and then put down landscape fabric to keep out the weeds, then I covered it with pea gravel. I had some leftover wood that I was using to make the posts, so Zach and I ripped the posts down to approximately 1x1 inch poles that I've tied together to make into tepees for my beans! We're going to make two more tepees and some stakes for peppers and determinant tomato plants.

I got some veggie plants and herbs 1/2 off in Grand Rapids Thursday and plopped those in the soil today. Red onions, green onions, some indeterminant tomatoes, eggplant, broccoli, cucumber, dill, fennel, stevia, lemongrass, thyme, sage, oregano, arugula, and sweet peppers. Now all that is left to do is to finish populating the area with more plants and seeds. And that is the project that my son and I intend to tackle on Wednesday. We will be getting seeds for beans, nasturtiums, carrots, lettuce, spinach, and possibly pumpkins and/or acorn squash. Oh, and hopefully some rhubarb.

Here is what it looks like now: